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Question about syndication

I noticed that most of the older shows 1950-1979 are not available on TV. except for the popular ones. I love Lucy Andy Griffish Dick Van Dyke...etc. And these are played on TV Land and local Stations. Where are the other shows that have not been shown in 20 years. like MY 3 sons and Voyage to the bottom of the sea. Is it that the owners of those shows don't want to give them up or is it that the stations don't want to show it because maybe it won't make money for them. most of those older shows are not evan availble on DVD yet.
 
> I noticed that most of the older shows 1950-1979 are not
> available on TV. except for the popular ones. I love Lucy
> Andy Griffish Dick Van Dyke...etc. And these are played on
> TV Land and local Stations. Where are the other shows that
> have not been shown in 20 years. like MY 3 sons and Voyage
> to the bottom of the sea. Is it that the owners of those
> shows don't want to give them up or is it that the stations
> don't want to show it because maybe it won't make money for
> them. most of those older shows are not evan availble on DVD
> yet.

This has been discussed over and over and over here. Check through all the pages and you will find most of the answers.
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Sometimes searching this board can be time consuming and at times people cant read through everything. Anyhow I have some ideas on this issue so why not state them.

Here are my ideas.

The short answer is some of these past shows are available and a few that are cable only are not. It seems the Paramount Viacom shows all seem to be available being they are on an over the air station someplace.

One way to know whether alot of these shows are available is to "Google" ME TV 26 WCIU and check out the "ME TV Schedule. All the shows airing on ME TV are available for syndication. This includes shows from Viacom, Columbia (I Believe Sony now), MCA, among many others.

One group of shows that appear to not be available is some of the Warner Brothers shows including Gilligan's Island and The Wonder YEars. These shows are not on cable anywhere I know of nor are they on the air on any over the air station. Gilligan though is available on DVD while Wonder years is not for the most part. Another group of shows that are no longer in syndication and on Casrtoon Network only or Boomerang only are the cartoons that Warner Brothers now holds the rights to. This included Flintstones, Scooby Doo, Jetsons, Bugs Bunny pre and post 1948 (both are under same copyright today while in the past they were not), Popeye (pre 1961 not available on DVD except some Public Domain episodes), Tom & Jerry, banana SPlits, Magilla Gorilla, Yogi Bear and so many others. They are only shown on Time Warner cable channels for kids. Some newer cartoons do air on WB (to Be CW) on Saturday morning. Most of the mentioned are on DVD while some of the stuff is not. So sadly some of the best classic cartoons are not available for syndication.

Even if they would be odds are no local station or very few of them would be interested because of mandates limiting advertising on kids shows and the content of such ads. This has made it impossible for local stations to make money on cartoons. Also more and more parents only allow their younger kids to have access to Nick, cartoon Network, Disney, and ABC Family because they dont have to worry about the content on these channels at all (unless the kids are up past 10 O'Clock.

Still I myself would love to see 2 stations per parket with 3 hour 6-9 AM and 2-5 PM kid blocks but it will never happen again unless the laws and viewing habits change.

As for classic TV shows...while many are available, they cost more money from the syndicator than the station can make in selling ad time in most cases. Sadly Leave It To Beaver, McHale's Navy, Gilligan's Island, My Three Sons, among others just dont rate well on a local station. Today young unemployed men, Men and women that work evenings, those who have a day off would rather watch Montel or Fear Factor than classic TV. Most classic TV fans are aging out of the desirable ad demo. The stay at home mom for the most part likes the soaps and game shows and that is why the network affiliates have managed to stay similarly formatted from 20 years ago while independents (including Fox, UPN, WB, CW, and whatever) have had to change. ALso I would love to see independent stations play a mix of calssic and recent sitcoms, cartoons, and old movies but they cant sell this type of general entertainment> Cable and satellite or DVD's or both is now the only way to go. Today's indies survive on reality TV (talk shows, magazine tabloid shows, court shows) and maybe a few recent sitcoms thrown in. Sad the way things have changed.
 
> One way to know whether alot of these shows are available is
> to "Google" ME TV 26 WCIU and check out the "ME TV Schedule.
> All the shows airing on ME TV are available for syndication.
> This includes shows from Viacom, Columbia (I Believe Sony
> now), MCA, among many others.

All syndicated Viacom and Paramount properties are CBS property now, under the "CBS/Paramount Television" brand.

Of course, older copies still used for broadcast may still have a Viacom or Paramount logo at the end.

And yes, Sony owns Columbia (and MGM, which also includes the Filmways and Orion programs, but not the pre-1985 MGM series (like "CHiPs"), which Time Warner owns).

<P ID="edit"><FONT class="small">Edited by rugrats1 on 03/19/06 04:58 PM.</FONT></P>
 
There is also a strong bias against black-and-white shows in syndication. Except for a few particularly exceptional and well-known series (I Love Lucy, Andy Griffith, Dick Van Dyke, etc.), shows not in color are rarely offered by syndicators or sought by broadcasters. The standard belief is that being in black-and-white automatically marks a show as "old" and, therefore, supposedly not of interest to the younger demographics that all channels and networks seek. (This is why Ted Turner once had the first season of "Gilligan's Island" colorized -- rather poorly -- to enhance its appeal and eliminate the jarring juxtaposition of those episodes with the later color shows.) "Bilko" was one of the best written and acted sitcoms of the 50's, but how often do you see it these days? TV Land ran it for a short time, then abandoned it.
 
> As for classic TV shows...while many are available, they
> cost more money from the syndicator than the station can
> make in selling ad time in most cases. Sadly Leave It To
> Beaver, McHale's Navy, Gilligan's Island, My Three Sons,
> among others just dont rate well on a local station. Today
> young unemployed men, Men and women that work evenings,
> those who have a day off would rather watch Montel or Fear
> Factor than classic TV. Most classic TV fans are aging out
> of the desirable ad demo.

Yes and no. It certainly is true that the classic shows will tend to skew older, which means a relatively small percentage of those desirable 18 to 49 year olds that advertisers so desperately want to reach.

But part of the problem is that most stations that run older shows will run just a couple of them, and throw them into a schedule seemingly at random, without any promotion, and in rotten time slots. When these shows are run in good late afternoon or evening time slots, they can earn some very respectable ratings (albeit, they probably still do skew old).

Some examples (from October 2005, which is the most recent numbers I have access to):

Here in Dallas/Fort Worth, KDFI/27 actually gets some of its best numbers with "Little House on the Praire" at 2 PM (1.4 rating/4 share) and "Andy Griffith" at 3 PM (two episodes, each getting a 1.2 rating/3 share). "Yes, Dear" at 4 PM actually loses audience from the "Andy Griffith" lead-in (dropping to a 0.7 rating/2 share). In late evenings on the same station, "MASH" maintains the rating of it lead-in, with "Malcolm in the Middle" at 10 PM, "King of the Hill" at 10:30, and double run of "MASH" at 11 PM all earning 1.1 ratings.

In Phoenix, we've all heard from Michael Haggerty at KAZT, which gains some decent ratings by placing shows like "Bewitched", "Andy Griffith", and "Hogan's Heroes" in prime early evening time slots. From what I can see, it looks like those shows all outperform the much newer "My Wife and Kids" on the same station.

In Minneapolis, independent KSTC/45 also makes good use of classic TV shows, with "Hogan's Heroes" at 9 PM actually tying for highest ratings of the day on that station (with the 6 PM run of "King of Queens", with both earning identical 1.3 ratings for the period I'm looking at).

In St. Louis, late night reruns of "Good Times" and "Sanford & Son" substantially outperform the much newer lead-ins on the local UPN station. (10:00 PM "Girlfriends" with a 1.7 rating, 10:30 "Steve Harvey" with a 2.0, 11:00 "Good Times" with a 2.5, and 11:30 "Sanford & Sons" with a 2.7 rating)

And, of course, there are some southern markets where "Andy Griffith" can still outperform any of the newer sitcoms.

With creative scheduling, I believe these shows could do even better...perhaps a pairing of "Andy Griffith" and "King of the Hill" might make sense, or "The Simpsons" and "The Flinstones".

Is a station going to lead the market with these older shows? Of course not (well, with the exception of "Andy Griffith" on WFMY in Greensboro, NC)...but they can certainly fill a successful little niche on a smaller station.
 
> > One way to know whether alot of these shows are available
> is
> > to "Google" ME TV 26 WCIU and check out the "ME TV
> Schedule.
> > All the shows airing on ME TV are available for
> syndication.
> > This includes shows from Viacom, Columbia (I Believe Sony
> > now), MCA, among many others.
>
> All syndicated Viacom and Paramount properties are CBS
> property now, under the "CBS/Paramount Television" brand.
>
> Of course, older copies still used for broadcast may still
> have a Viacom or Paramount logo at the end.
>
> And yes, Sony owns Columbia (and MGM, which also includes
> the Filmways and Orion programs, but not the pre-1985 MGM
> series (like "CHiPs"), which Time Warner owns).
>
And everything MCA is now under the domain of NBC/Universal..which means don't expect to see Universal's 70s cop/PI/paramedic shows on your local Indy station.
 
> > > One way to know whether alot of these shows are
> available
> > is
> > > to "Google" ME TV 26 WCIU and check out the "ME TV
> > Schedule.
> > > All the shows airing on ME TV are available for
> > syndication.
>
In Indianapolis, WHMB TV 40 has an afternoon block of "family shows" to offset their normal religious broadcast day from the LeSea Network. They show "Lassie" with Timmy, "Green Acres," "Leave It to Beaver," "The Cosby Show," "My Three Sons," (the color episodes from the CBS years, not my favorites from the ABC years with Tim Considine as oldest brother Mike and William Frawley as Uncle Bub.)and "The Rifleman." Another problem with the earlier shows is they were programs supported by one sponsor and usually run about 25 minutes in length. The shows usually have to be cut to 20 minutes or so to allow for local commercials and promos. 5 minutes can be a lot of lost time.
 
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